


Captain Awesome and His Amazing Enterprise

by ninhursag



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Child Abuse, Crack, Gen, Humor, Rock Stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-26
Updated: 2010-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-06 17:42:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninhursag/pseuds/ninhursag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the crack fic where Jim Kirk, teenage trouble-maker, decides to start a band in his mom's garage. An Earth au. Mostly in fun, but the angst slipped in there a little.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Captain Awesome and His Amazing Enterprise

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |  [star trek](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/tag/star+trek)  
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The band starts out as a joke in Jim Kirk's mother's garage while she's out of the country with doctors without borders-- again, as usual. He's got a battered guitar and a fifty dollar amp he bought from a pawn shop. It comes with an overpowering need to crank it up as high as possible and irritate the neighbors with the power chords he picked up in the torn up volume of _How to play guitar like a rockstar in 15 easy lessons!_ he stole from the library.

It works pretty well. The blue haired creep across the street comes doddering down on his cane threatening to call the cops, this one guy in a business suit screams at Jim's stepdad for nearly fifteen minutes with a blue tooth blinking in his ear the whole time and the other neighbor's kid threatens to murder Jim if he flunks his AP bio exam because he can't study over the noise.

Actually, what he says is, "If your strange ability to invent new notes that should not exist on a musical scale continues to disrupt me and I receive less than a 5 on this exam, I will find you and then strangle you with your own viscera."

Jim blinks at him for nearly ten whole seconds before he grins, "Well, I can tutor you if you want, Spock. I took it last year."

Spock glares at him like he's reincarnated algae and smells worse, and then walks off muttering, but Jim doesn't blame him. If he'd been stuck with a name like Spock he'd probably be in a bad mood all the time too. Kid has a left hook like a fucking pile driver too, as Jim has every reason to know from the time he made that yo mama joke. Ouch.

But anyway, why blame when you can crank out the bridge of Paint It Black loud enough to make your amp crackle? Jim screams into his imaginary microphone, "I am Captain Awesome and you will be totally rocked."

Then his stepdad cuts the power to the garage and tries to throw the amp into the trash. Jim salvages it later, but the distortion on it is never the same again. The bastard always ends up so cranky when Jim's mom is out of the country long enough.

That might have been that if he hadn't tried to use the band thing to pick up one of the foreign diplomat's kids at school. Her mother is in charge of something or other at the Kenyan Embassy. She knows about ten languages fluently and is working on another ten all at once. She has legs up to heaven, skin so smooth it's like she's been airbrushed and fills out a button down shirt in the most awesome way imaginable.

In the middle of the last meeting of the year of the foreign language club he finds out she plays bass guitar. It takes him two seconds to take his hands off the flip chart and grin at her. "Hey, Uhura," he says, "That's awesome. I have a guitar. Wanna be in my band?"

She narrows her eyes at him. "No," she says. "I'm busy."

He shrugs and goes back to running the meeting. But afterwards, this kid everyone calls Scotty because his dad does IT for the British Embassy or something hits him up in the hall. He's got hair in his face and a ridiculous, ear splitting grin. "I hear you're starting a band," he says. "You need a drummer?"

Jim doesn't even think about. "Sure," he says. He grins back at Scotty. "We can practice at my place."

This, he decides, is going to be really awesome. In fact, that's what he tells his best friend Bones McCoy at lunch (Bones is better than Leonard, okay? Jim had to come up with it himself). The fridge was empty again this morning so he's got a bag of raisinets from the vending machine and is trying to toss them up and catch them between his teeth. It's sort of semi-successful and he ends up having to pick up about half of them off the grass and blow dust off them before eating them.

"Do you know what kind of diseases you can get doing that?" Bones demands while giving him this disgusted half glare, like he's sure Jim is going to pass the said diseases right on over. Which, okay, Jim would, because that would be funny.

He grins and smacks his lips. "Sure," he says. "What about tapeworm? Wanna tapeworm, Bones? Oh, and by the way, I'm starting a band. It's going to be awesome."

Bones glares at him some more and starts dividing his sandwich in half with a plastic knife. "What the hell for? Do you even know how to play an instrument?"

Jim waggles his fingers. "Guitar, baby. Besides, I can write songs. Paul fucking McCartney wrote songs without even knowing how to read music and he got the best chicks. How am I less awesome than that?"

Bones shakes his head and looks put upon. He shoves half a sandwich into Jim's open hand and Jim stuffs it into his mouth. It's turkey and cranberry mayo. Good. He grins around his mouthful. "You're gonna be in my band, right?" he demands. "You want chicks too, right?"

Bones winces. "Teach me to give you food. Didn't anyone ever tell you it was disgusting to chew with your mouth open?"

Kirk opens his mouth wide and sticks his tongue out while Bones makes gagging noises. Then he swallows and gives Bones a brilliant, wide eyed smile. "Come on. I know your older sister has a guitar you can borrow. That Scott kid has a drum kit. My place after school."

The stepdad doesn't even bother to glare when Jim piles out of Scotty's van and they start setting up that afternoon. He just gives Jim a narrow eyed _later_ kind of look that Jim ignores.

The first practice is excellent. Jim has managed to pick up enough chords to get through the chorus of Forming by the Germs, and the pounding drums are just ear decimating under Scotty's assault. Bones gives him a hairy eyeball the whole time and the neighbor kid comes over and threatens to throw rocks at his head.

Actually, what he says is, "If you do not lower the volume to standard acceptable parameters I will be forced to an extreme action such as creating new ventilation for your brain matter." And he's holding a nasty looking rock while he says it.

Jim laughs at him, bright and open. "You should play with us, Spock," he says. Spock just glares a little harder, drops the rock on the ground and kicks at Jim meaningful before stomping off.

"He's certainly an interesting fellow," Scott says, gaze following Spock's back, hands still on his drum sticks. "What instrument does he play?" Jim laughs louder.

After that the stepdad is a little annoyed and Jim feels something in his wrist pop when he's fighting him to keep his guitar from getting smashed. It hurts like hell. Honestly, he's completely freaked out for a little bit, until they tell him at the clinic that it's just a sprain. Even so it sucks.

Mostly that means that they have to start practicing over at Scotty's which is fine, because Scotty's mom always seems to be ordering pizza in between puttering around with her server network and Jim is more than good with pizza. That and Bones actually has to learn to play the guitar since Jim can't hold it right for about two weeks, and ho boy, that makes him grouchy.

"You're such a dumbass," he tells Jim. "You should do something. You should let me do something."

Jim just rolls his eyes and rubs his sore wrist with his fingers. "I do plenty. Hey, I was, like, meant to be the singer, anyway. I'm totally the dude with the charisma here and the chicks are going to fall all over me. Fall and drool. Quod erat demonstrandum."

Bones makes a face. "Do you even know what that means? You do, don't you, that's the scary thing here. Other people have to work to know things."

Jim gives him a look. "That is because, unlike other people, I'm Captain Awesome." Then he claps Bones on the back with his good hand goes to get another piece of pizza. Bones probably keeps thinking shit, but Jim tries not to. Life is short.

The other thing is that it's totally an in with Nyota Uhura. He catches her after their calc final and gives her his most pathetic look, holding up his screwed up hand. He thrusts the notes for the song he's been working on at her with his good hand.

"Come on, Uhura," he says. "I'm half way out of commission and now we really, really need someone to play bass. Just jam with us once, it will be fun."

She frowns and almost shoves the music back at him, but whatever she sees in his face makes one perfect eyebrow go up. She sighs softly and looks over the notes he's scribbled. Her expression changes, shifting from skeptical to bemused. "Huh. This is... actually pretty good. This is... if I do it, this is not a date," she says. He nods solemnly.

It's even true. "I want you to be there because you're the best," he says and grins. "Also, we could use some actual musical talent."

She cracks a smile. He's not sure it's the first she's given him, but it feels like it. "I know," she says. "Believe me, Jimmy boy, I know you can use all the help you can get."

Spock's mom dies of a brain aneurysm on a sticky summer Tuesday. As far as Jim knows, no one expected it, she wasn't sick. Jim wouldn't even have known it happened for weeks, except he's home when the ambulance comes and he sees them carry her out through his window, Spock following, white faced and empty, hands clenched behind his back. There's a sheet over her face and Spock is the same color.

Jim swallows deep and thinks he's never seen anyone stand that alone. He tries to imagine how he'd feel if his mom never came home from Burma or Nigeria or Afghanistan, if it was going to be him and the stepdad forever. It makes him close his eyes and shudder.

Later, he sneaks up to Spock's house, climbs the tree to his half open bedroom window and slides a note inside.

It says, _Band practice is at three. If you don't play any instruments, bring a tambourine. One with bells_.

He doesn't really expect Spock to show up, but he does. He doesn't bring a tambourine, instead he's got what looks like an extremely well cared for looking Yamaha keyboard and a stiff as a board expression on his face.

"I hope this will be acceptable," he says. His hands are white knuckled on his instrument, but otherwise he looks completely impassive.

Jim looks around at his band mates. Bones looks annoyed, but that's his perpetual state of being. Scotty is toying with the drum set up and doesn't seem to have noticed anything else. Uhura though, she's absolutely beaming, like she just got a kitten or a dime bag of primo Canadian hash. Or maybe like Jim would be beaming if he got the same bag.

He looks back at Spock. "That," he assures him. "Will be absolutely _awesome_. Almost as great as a tambourine. Come on, sit down and set up." And it is, of course. Jim hadn't even realized how many new things he could write with someone on keys in his band until he had one.

Now all they need is a band name. When Jim suggests the totally rational and brilliant Captain Awesome and His Somewhat Less Awesome Musketeers someone throws m&amp;m's at the back of his head when he's not looking. He suspects Bones, no one else would waste perfectly good sugar and chocolate like that.

"Oh, what do you wanna call it? Bones the Neurotic Emo Experience?" he demands while Bones sneers at him.

It's Spock who says, "Given that this band is our mutual enterprise, I suggest--"

"Enterprise," Jim says, stopping him before he can go on. "That's it. We're Enterprise." Bones still jeers at him, but it's not like he can come up with anything better.

Jim's eighteenth birthday comes about three months into his senior year. His mom calls him from a satellite phone in Nairobi. "I love you," she says, her voice scattering in and out, unreal, static-y. "Have a wonderful day."

"I love you too," he says. After he puts down the phone, he pours himself most of the bottle of vodka that the stepdad thinks he's hiding in the medicine cabinet, steals the keys and wraps the stepdad's car around a tree trunk.

For at least half an hour before the cops come this is the funniest joke in the history of ever. He literally cannot stop laughing even while the EMT checks him out before they let the cops drag him down to the station. He figures they called the stepdad to get him, but he's not too surprised when the guy doesn't come. Hell, if it were him in that position, Jim wouldn't come.

Eventually, by the time the sun is coming up, Bones shows up to glare at him. "I bailed your ass out. Now I'm taking you home," he says.

Jim, who'd been sound asleep when the cops shook him awake to kick him out of there, just kind of blinks. His head is throbbing. "I don't think they really want to see me back there," he says.

"That's why I'm not taking you there," Bones says. Jim wants to object but the pounding in his head just seems to get worse, not better. Also, his stomach feels like it feel victim to someone trying to tie it like a cherry stem. He doesn't look Bones in the face, just nods. He honestly does not want to see Bones' expression right now.

He stays on Bones' parents couch for the better part of eight hours, mostly with a cloth over his eyes pretending to sleep. Eventually it hurts less and he really does fall asleep. When he wakes up, Bones isn't around so he goes to the bathroom long enough to get himself into some kind of order.

He looks like shit, bags under his eyes, cuts on his face from the accident. He's going to be purple and green for days. He sneers at his own expression. Then he walks out the door and hitches a ride from a blonde college girl in a shiny new silver Jetta back to his place.

He almost walks up to his front door. Doesn't know what stops him, maybe just the residual headache. He could probably just call Bones if he wants to, but he doesn't. That doesn't seem... it isn't fair, somehow.

He doesn't know what drives him across the street, to Spock's place. He doesn't ring the bell, he goes for the tree by Spock's bedroom window instead. It hurts his bruised elbows to climb, but whatever. He raps on the glass with his knuckles.

Spock comes to the window, looking as mussed as if Jim's just dragged him out of bed. He's wearing glasses, but they're on crooked and his eyebrows go up when he sees Jim on his window sill. He opens the window.

"You have certainly looked better," he observes and helps Jim climb inside. Jim's stomach stops fluttering-- he hadn't realized he wasn't sure if Spock was going to let him in until just now.

"Car accident," Jim says shortly. "Ouch."

"My God. Should you be at the hospital?" Jim blinks and spins around at the second voice. He knows his eyes must be saucer wide, but holy shit. That's Nyota Uhura in Spock's bed, covered up with a thin light blue sheet, looking just as... handled as Spock does. Handled. Wow.

"No," Jim says, without thinking about it. "This is really much better for me." Uhura makes a face. "No, really, the EMTs gave me the all clear," he quickly adds.

And wow, the awkward settles in sharply when they both kind of look at him. He realizes what the heavy, salty smell in the air must be and wow. Wow. He can't remember the last time he blushed before, but suddenly his face feels really hot.

"Uh," he manages. "I'm clearly interrupting and um, totally leaving." And filing directly in spank bank, but, okay, not going to say that. He starts to slide toward the door and then stops. Maybe he should go back out the window?

He doesn't have time to decide. Spock's hands are suddenly on his arms, holding on to him. Jim looks up into his eyes-- dark, shining under his glasses. But it's Uhura who stands up, sheet still wrapped around her and walks over to them to say, "You look tired. You can stay."

Jim blinks and feels his flush spread. "I don't even know why I came here. I didn't mean--"

"Those thing do not matter. You can stay and rest," Spock finishes for him. "You can stay."

Jim opens his mouth to argue, insinuate, smirk, something. Nothing comes out. He's really got nothing. He blinks again. "Okay," he whispers. They put him to bed and he closes his eyes.

Someone strokes his hair, light and soft. "Say goodnight to Captain Awesome," he mumbles to that hand.

Uhura laughs, low and sweet. "Goodnight, Jim," she says. He falls asleep like that.


End file.
